THE precarious nature of a boxing career is reflected in the differing fortunes of British heavyweights Tyson Fury and David Price.

Whereas Fury has just started preparing to face Wladimir Klitschko for the Ukrainian’s WBO title in October, Price is likely still trying to come to terms with his second-round KO defeat at the hands of Germany’s Erkan Teper earlier this month for the vacant EBU European title, a fight everybody-but-everybody expected the giant and affable Liverpudlian to win handsomely.

The fact he was fighting an opponent who looked as if he’d based his training camp at his local Burger King, and whose ring achievements prior to the fight consisted of a Mediterranean title, only confirms the sharp decline suffered by Price since back-to-back defeats against Tony Thompson in 2013.

Compounding his misery will be the fact that the former Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Olympic bronze medallist was being touted for his own world title shot just three years ago, considered by many to be Britain’s best chance of future heavyweight glory at world level.

Now he is close to being considered a laughing stock, occupying the same role that Audley Harrison once filled as a figure of fun and ridicule rather than a serious contender for high honours.

Price, it is clear, carries deep psychological scars from the Thompson debacle that have never healed.

He fights like a man who expects to lose, pawing with a jab that for a fighter of his height and size should be his most formidable weapon.

Teper was almost walking through his punches. They were so languid and half-heartedly thrown and when it comes to punch resistance his chin has come to resemble a pane of glass.

Where Price goes from here is anybody’s guess but based on how woeful he looked in his last fight and the humiliation he undoubtedly experienced at the manner of his defeat, unless he can dredge up the will and fire to make amends he should walk away before he gets hurt.

In contrast to the crippling collapse in confidence suffered by Price, Fury carries more of it in his fists than the Red Army possessed at the gates of Berlin.

At the recent press conference in Dusseldorf’s Esprit Arena, where he is set to meet Klitschko on October 24, the 6'9" traveller left the urbane and cultured Ukrainian in no doubt that he’s in for a wild ride of trash-talking and histrionics from now until the bell marks the start of hostilities.

Not just any old trash-talking either, mind. No, we’re talking the sort that should come with a health warning.

Both fighters are a study in contrast, occupying opposite ends of a spectrum in heavyweight boxing that has produced such cultured champions as Gene Tunney, a man who could boast George Bernard Shaw as a personal friend and who when he wasn’t training was to be found reading the classics, while at the opposite end you’ve got Sonny Liston, who during his life read nothing more taxing than the fear in a man’s eyes while working as a leg-breaker for the mob.

Those two competing and contrasting traditions were on display at the press conference in Germany to announce Klitschko’s WBO mandatory title defence against Fury.

The 26-year-old Mancunian Traveller, make no mistake, truly believes he is the man to KO the 39-year-old and thus end one of the longest reigns the sport has seen, comprising 67 fights and just three losses, the last of which was in 2004.

The fact Klitschko took this mandatory rather than relinquish the belt came as a surprise to many. At 39 and holding three of the four belts, you’d have thought he would give Fury a body-swerve.

The verbal grief alone presents a challenge, much less the physical one in the shape of a 6'9" heavyweight who comes to fight and is able to switch between orthodox and southpaw at will.

Klitschko at 6'6" has never faced an opponent three inches taller than him, which means his usual approach of remaining on the outside and relying on his superb jab and straight right hands to get the job done won’t be enough on this occasion.

Without doubt he is far superior technically than the younger man — his balance, defence and ring awareness are first-class, while Fury, despite his constant claims to greatness, is all blood and thunder, reliant on his size and prodigious will to remain undefeated in 24 fights.

How Klitschko deals with Fury’s size will be key. He will have to take chances in order to close the distance, though if Fury allows the occasion and adrenalin to get to him and comes forward with his chin in the air and hands down, as he has in previous fights, the Ukrainian will make him pay dearly.

Apart from his heart, Fury’s greatest weapon is Peter Fury, his uncle and trainer, who never ceases to impress with his thoughtful observations on the sport.

Unlike his nephew, Peter Fury exudes a calm demeanour consistent with a man who understands that the violence inside a boxing ring is child’s play compared to the kind that comes through the front door at three in the morning wearing a balaclava.

There is no question that he will come up with the gameplan required to defeat Klitschko.

The ability of his 26-year-old nephew to implement it on the night, the extent to which he can control emotions that in the past have been prone to driving him forward in those previously mentioned adrenalin-fuelled broadsides, is another question entirely.

What is certain is that while Fury has never faced a fighter of Klitschko’s calibre, the Ukrainian has never faced anyone like Fury, who will carry into the ring the hopes, pride and honour of a much put-upon and maligned Travelling community.

At least the Red Army only had to contend with the Wehrmacht.